Social Media for Family Historians – my first book!

Social Media for Family Historians, my first book, was published on Friday 22nd October 2010. It was launched at the Unlock The Past History and Genealogy Expo in Sydney.

It contains 76 pages in full colour to explain what social media is and why it is of use to family historians. It introduces more than 25 websites that can help family historians, and anyone with families, to communicate, share and collaborate with each other.

I think social media could have been designed specifically with family historians in mind. The networking that we do as researchers is made much easier by social media sites, and the interest that we have in distantly related family members is way beyond that of a normal person!

We can share our family trees, documents, photos and videos; use Skype to communicate across the world; and write a blog to share our discoveries with family members, and to allow others to find us.

Here is the Table of Contents:

1. Introduction

2. What is Social Media?

The Internet

Self-publishing

Social media

3. Why use it?

Advantages

Disadvantages

4. Communication

Chat

Mailing lists and Forums

Social Networking

Blogs

Microblogging

Virtual Worlds

5. Sharing

Family Trees

Photographs

Videos

Social Cataloguing

6. Collaboration

Wikis

Social Bookmarking

Documents

Questions and Answers

7. Dangers

Risks

Some simple rules

8. What are you waiting for?

Appendix 1. How to get started with Facebook

Sign up for Facebook

Using Facebook

Appendix 2. How to get started with blogging

Find a host

Create an account

Name your blog

Set Security

Create your profile

Select a design

Start writing!

More advanced blogging

The book is $19.50 plus postage. It will be available from Gould Genealogy any minute now, or directly from me. Email me if you are interested in purchasing a copy at carole (at) heritagegenealogy.com.au.

Trackbacks

[…] so I can identify them. I had hoped to publish the results at the time but I was caught up with other things and didn’t get a […]

I was born in Sydney and grew up in country NSW. I've lived in Sydney since leaving school and starting university. My mother is the descendant of farmers and graziers on her father's side, and professionals on her mother's; and my father is a South Sea Islander. Read More…